The mighty hike to Trolltunga

The hike to Trolltunga is said to take 8-10hrs, it’s 22km return, and 900m elevation gain, but you are rewarded with the incredible ‘trolls tounge’ at the end. I wasn’t too keen on the idea, my longest hike was probably in the sweltering jungle of Nepal searching for rhinos for about 30km on foot, it was exhausting. But then we thought at least it’ll separate the men from the boys and won’t get too busy like the other hikes we’ve done in Norway. You only live once so might as well do it while we’re young.

We woke early, packed a big lunch, and set off in the most unusual warm wind. It was uphill, climbing roughly 900m in the first 4km. The carpark cost £10 to use, and a sign said money went towards maintenance of the track…hmm, I’m doubtful. The first 1km was steep along a mud track, it rained all night and started again as we were walking and made the going tough. Eventually they filled the mud in with stone steps, lots of them, I counted around 800.

After the tough beginning we had 7 more kilometres of steady ups and downs, with a variety of terrain. At around 1100m there was a maze of melting ice lakes.

As we veered over a hill we got a view of things to come, and it looked bloody awesome. The lake below us was a bowl shape to our left, with steep mountain walls surrounding it. The summits were curved and green and the edges were all cut straight down with dark crevasses and waterfalls dropping from all angles. From the bowl lake it wiggled far below us curving around and bulging into another wide lake to our right. The whole view almost looked fake, surreal and too good to be true.

We had a few more streams, and gushing waterfalls to negotiate and rock hop over and 4 hours later we’d made it to Trolltunga. A long sheet of rock hovering above the void below. It hung over foliage and rocks, but the lake we’d been following was an amazing backdrop for it.

I climbed down the metal steps first for a photo on the rock and couldn’t believe how big it was. It was about 6m wide I reckon, and it was all slanted uphill so actually felt pretty safe to stand on.

So safe that we both sat on the edge, legs hanging down. I was even leaning forward and looking at the drop below me and didn’t get jittery at all. It was only afterwards, when someone else sat on it that I noticed how thin the edge was, I’m sure bits crumble away everyday and I certainly wouldn’t want to go near it after a fat person.

I had an awkward wait to go on the rock as a Ukrainian couple were taking their sweet time. They must have written a list beforehand of poses to do on the rock. To name a few: standing together, holding Ukraine flag, piggy back, him picking her up, both sitting on edge, yoga pose, kissing YUK!!, jumping, and finishing off with the waltz and him bending her back towards the edge. Get a room, geez.

The route back was brutal, my feet were drenched and I barely had enough energy to lift them off the ground. The mud track was a million times worse going downhill, plus the rain and other hikers had created a muddy slide, I was practically skiing down.